Trouble with marine radio

[walleyewizard]

I'm having problems with my marine radio. It will receive just fine, but as soon as I key the mike it blows a fuse. It worked fine this spring, but all of a sudden started acting up. I turned all other electronics off and it still pops the fuse. Even tried a new radio with the same results. Any ideas????

[mltjanderson]

have you check your antenna cable? sounds like a short to ground to me. but i'm no expert.

[walleyewizard]

Yes, I unhooked the antenna from the back and still blow a fuse. Very frustrating!!

[Gissert]

It could be an internal problem in the radio. A radio draws much more current in transmit mode. I would double check all your external power and ground wires first.

As a side note, it is really hard on a transmitter to transmit with out a load such as an antenna or dummy load.

[Giant_Jackpot]

Check all of the connections to the power source (positive and ground) and make sure there is no corrosion. Are there 2 fuses in your setup? I have my positive connection for the radio coming right off the battery and there is a fuse right there at that connection. There is also an inline fuse that came with the radio. My point is just to make sure you are checking ALL of the connections. I have had this happen to me and cleaning up the connections solved the problem.

[PerchJerker]

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I unhooked the antenna from the back and still blow a fuse

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I hate to tell you this, but if you keyed your mic without having an antenna hooked up you very likely blew your transmiter. You should test your transmit power (need a special tester to do this), it should be at 20 watts, you might be less than 1 watt now. Not that this helps with your original problem, just saying that you might have a 2nd problem now too.

[SteveWilson]

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Yes, I unhooked the antenna from the back and still blow a fuse. Very frustrating!!

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You keyed your radio without an antenna? Goodbye radio, that's how you toast them. I would say that your antenna or cable is probably defective. You might want to ask your antenna manufacturer on how to test it (you might have an open).

[hitthebricks]

Is there a place in the Twin Cities that is good with marine radios? My radio won't transmit or recieve much more than a mile. This radio has been a constant source of problems and I'm about ready to scrap the whole setup and start over but I would like to have it tested before I do that. HTB

[PerchJerker]

In most cases the problem is with the antenna and not the radio, although that is not always true. But that's why having your radio tested seperately from your antennna is probably not going to tell you much.

I have a Shakespeare tester, got it for around $35. It tests the radio's transmit power and the feedback from the antenna. I use it on my rig whenever I have a problem and have loaned it out to a bunch of friends that have wanted to test their boats. Very handy to have. Let's you know where the problem is.

[SteveWilson]

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My radio won't transmit or recieve much more than a mile.

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Assuming that you aren't transmitting on low power (see your radio's documentation) then I would ask, What size antenna do you have? If it's a three foot whip then a mile is about what you should expect. You really need to go with an 8' antenna. If you do have an 8' antenna then I would suspect cabling problems (check your connector) but I would pull out my Shakespear antenna tester to check the SWR. BTW, an SWR meter used for checking CB installations will not work for marine radio's as most SWR meters used for CB only cover the CB frequencies and not that used by Marine band. Of course if you have a SWR meter for your ham setup then it might work if it covers the marine band frequencies.

[hitthebricks]

I do have a 8' antenna and the problem did start when we installed a new cable connector because before it would recive very well but transmitted at very low volume when I would talk on the radio. I thought the problem was fixed but we only tested it at shorter distances until this weekend. Friends in close boats would have to relay info. to others farther away. Who sells the testers? Thanks HTB

[SteveWilson]

I bought a Shakespear ART3. You can find them at Buy Reliant and Bass Pro Shops. You can also go with an ART2. The ART3 includes a function to test the receive function otherwise the ART2 and ART3 are the same

[wx_nut]

I would try Radio City in Mounds View. They fix just about any kind of radio there.